Lonnie Byers, portrayed by Ross Partridge, is a recurring character in the first season of Stranger Things. Lonnie is the shifty ex-husband of Joyce, and the father of Will and Jonathan.
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What is the relationship between Lonnie Byers and Joyce in Stranger Things?
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History[]
Background[]
Lonnie Byers was born sometime in the late 1930s/1940s, and was most likely born and raised in Hawkins. It's possible he attended school alongside Joyce Byers, which explains how they met. Sometime during the 1960s, Lonnie and Joyce married and had their first son named Jonathan. Jonathan mentioned that Joyce and Lonnie did at one point love one another, but he wasn't present for it, meaning their marriage became a problem from a start. On March 22, 1971, their second son Will Byers was born. Though Will was close to Joyce and Jonathan, Lonnie was extremely unsupportive of his son's love for video games, drawing, and Dungeons & Dragons, and called him a queer and a fag due to his perceived sexuality. It is implied that Lonnie may have been unfaithful or even physically abusive to Joyce during their marriage, though the details of that era have not yet been explored on the show. For Jonathan's 10th birthday, around 1977, Lonnie made him go hunting with him and forced his son to kill a rabbit, causing Jonathan to cry for a week. Due to Lonnie's negligence as a parent, Jonathan stepped in as a father figure to Will. The day Lonnie left, the brothers built a fort for Will out in the woods by the house named Castle Byers. By 1982, Lonnie was living in Indianapolis. He began dating Cynthia.
1982[]
On an unspecified date, Joyce and Lonnie were arguing. Jonathan and Will were in Jonathan's bedroom, listening to music. Jonathan turned up the volume to drown out the argument.
1983[]
When Will went missing, Joyce called Lonnie multiple times, not because she believed in the possibility of Will being with him, but because Chief Jim Hopper did. He never answered his phone, but his girlfriend did, and she hung up on Joyce once she realized she was his ex-wife.
Jonathan then went to Lonnie's house to look for Will. Lonnie did not care that Will was missing and blamed Joyce.
After a body believed to be Will's was found in a quarry, Lonnie came to Joyce's house and planned to sleep on her couch for a few days; Joyce believed he was there for Will's funeral. Seeing the wrecked state Joyce was in, Lonnie began cleaning up the house, including taking down the lights Joyce had set up to communicate with Will and patching up the hole she had carved into the wall. While he did this, Lonnie made a remark about how the quarry had no warning signs around it, and that Sattler, the company that owned the quarry, should be held accountable. Becoming suspicious of this, Joyce went through his belongings while he was in the shower and discovered that Lonnie only came to sue Sattler and receive the financial compensation, ostensibly to pay off his own debts despite his claims that it was to pay for Jonathan's college tuition. Joyce then violently threatened him and threw him out of her house.
Personality[]
Lonnie could be described as a sleaze, being a drunkard, uncouth, and a complete slob. He's extremely selfish and deceitful, using his son's disappearance and "death" for his own benefit, while dressing it up as a heroic attempt to comfort his grieving ex-wife. He is disrespectful of both Joyce and his sons, suggesting that Joyce is crazy for stringing up Christmas lights, and criticizing Jonathan's choice of decorations for his room, even after being absent from his life for years. Lonnie is also homophobic, and in the past, harassed Will about his sexuality, calling him weak and a waste of a son, due to his sensitive nature. All in all, Lonnie was an emotionally abusive father, and is unloved by both his ex-wife and his sons.
Relationships[]
- Joyce Byers – Ex-Wife
- Jonathan Byers – Son
- Will Byers – Son
Appearances[]
| Season One appearances | |||
| The Vanishing of Will Byers | The Weirdo on Maple Street | The Body | |
| The Flea and the Acrobat | |||
Family tree[]
note: family trees are only visible on desktop.
 |  | ||||||||||||||||||||
 Jonathan Byers |  Will Byers |  Daughter | |||||||||||||||||||
Memorable Quotes[]
- "Look, all I'm saying is, maybe I'm not the asshole, all right?"
Trivia[]
- In the season finale, Lonnie was originally going to return and help Nancy and Jonathan fight the Demogorgon instead of Steve, who was supposed to die. Due to to the production's fondness for Joe Keery and his performance, Steve was given the redemption arc instead - with Lonnie not having been seen since.
- Within the tie-in comic series that focuses on Will's point of view throughout the first season, it's revealed during "The Flea and the Acrobat" that Lonnie seals the broken wall of the Byers house. This inadvertently blocks the portal of the house, preventing Will from escaping the alternate dimension.[1]
- Due to him being estranged from his family after the events of Season 1, it's unknown whether Lonnie is aware that Will is alive.
- Lonnie has been alluded to being physically abusive, with hints that he and Jonathan have gotten into physical altercations. When Lonnie pins Jonathan against the wall, Jonathan pushes him off easily, with Lonnie saying, "Damn, you've gotten stronger." While Joyce remarks that Lonnie made flippantly homophobic comments while criticizing Will’s clothes and demeanor, Jonathan seemed to believe his father's intolerance could have turned his abuse from verbal to physical - going so far as to check the trunk of his car for the missing Will.
Gallery[]
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